Lapid Blasts Europe's Push To Recognize Palestinian State: "A Dangerous Fantasy"

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid issued a scathing rebuke of recent European moves to recognize a Palestinian state, warning that such gestures risk rewarding extremism and entrenching failure rather than promoting peace.

Here's what he said:

"There are two types of countries that are now announcing they are about to recognize a Palestinian state: those doing it against us, like Ireland and Spain, and those doing it because they think they are for us, like France and Britain, and certainly Germany.

I’m not sure what’s more annoying. Those who do this to us on purpose, for reasons where it’s easy to identify more than a hint of antisemitism, or those who believe, with no small amount of arrogance, that they know better than us what’s good for us.

The problem, of course, is not that France recognizes a Palestinian state. After all, it won’t cause one to arise. The problem is that they don’t ask themselves the fundamental questions: What are its borders? What is its capital? What kind of leadership does it have? What kind of regime? Is it a democracy? Does it support the right of return? Does it have the tools to deal with a Hamas takeover attempt the moment it is established?

I’ve been asking the last question to many of my friends and acquaintances in self-righteous Europe in recent days. Of course, they have no answer. They haven’t really thought it through. If the Palestinian state they support is destined to be another failed and murderous terrorist state – towards its residents and towards the Jews – do they still support it?

Because it’s nice that they want an enlightened, prosperous, democratic Palestinian state, where in the cafés of Ramallah they debate Sartre and Camus, but we all know that’s not exactly what will happen. If the world recognizes a Palestinian state without demanding anything from the Palestinians, they will draw one conclusion: that they don’t need to make an effort.

Why should they? If after thirty years of corruption and violence by the Palestinian Authority, if after Abu Mazen canceled the elections and denied Palestinians democracy, if after Hamas’s takeover of Gaza and the horror of October 7, the next thing that happens is global recognition of a Palestinian state, then from their perspective, they’re probably doing something right.

If Europe really wants a Palestinian state to ever arise, it needs to do exactly the opposite: demand that the Palestinians change. They need to prove to us that they know how to be democrats, know how to fight terrorism, know how to clean themselves of corruption. Declaring support for those who handed out sweets in Nablus and Hebron on the morning of October 7 does not advance the two-state solution, if anything, it pushes it further away."